January 31, 2011

Do you remember how I made myself crazy in Advent, knitting gifts for all five of the kids? You might even remember how one gift in particular made me Crazy-with-a-capital-C-and-perhaps-an-exclamation-point, because it combined a couple of things I don't do very well, and because it took for-freaking-ever, and because I really wanted the recipient to be happy with it. I finished weaving in the ends a little after midnight on Christmas, in time to give it to a delighted boy later that day.

This morning he confessed to me that the gift disappeared last week.

My husband cannot STAND it when our kids lose things, especially game pieces. "I never lost game pieces when I was a kid," I have heard him say approximately 2,096,365 times. "Never!" Is this really true? Perhaps it was. I, however, remember clearly the pain of losing things as a kid. (And as an adult.) I hate losing things -- hates it forever, as a matter of fact -- and yet I do it anyway.

Part of giving handknits to kids is detaching from their fate. Do I want it to be used and loved, or do I want it to sit in a drawer? If the former, well then: I have to accept that it won't stay pristine. I have a sort of mental rule, though, that I want them to wear the gift for at least as many hours as I spent making it before I can consign it to its uncertain future.

I can't quite bring myself to think about the ratio of work time to wearing time for this gift. It's not a pretty ratio.

I didn't yell or rant this morning, but my disappointment was very clear. He knows enough about knitting to know that the gift required a whole lot of my time, and he cried. He apologized. I tried to respond graciously to the apology, but I wasn't very persuasive. There's a tricky balance with kids and stuff, you know? We have to teach them to be good stewards of what they've been given, to take good care of their belongings (and others' too), to be respectful of the time and money that nice things represent. At the same time, we have to teach them that the people always matter more than the things.

When my oldest was a toddler he loved to tug on my necklace. I don't wear much jewelry, just my wedding/engagement rings and a crucifix my husband gave me on our wedding day. I told Alex again and again that he needed to leave my crucifix alone, until the day he snapped the chain. He looked aghast and burst into contrite wails. It was one of those crucible moments for me: how was I going to respond? Was I going to yell that I had told him so a million times? Instead I said, "You are more important than my necklace, even though it is very special to me." He and Elwood went together to the jeweler to have it soldered. The resulting little rigid spot was a reminder to me of the kind of mother I wanted to be -- as were the other little rigid spots that came along after later repairs. I think each boy broke that chain; finally a jeweler told me I needed a new one because it couldn't be repaired again.

I didn't get to the Office of Readings until after they left for school, and it felt like a nudge from heaven to see that today was the feast of St. John Bosco. (He is best known for his work with orphaned and abandoned boys.) Here's a snippet from today's second reading:

They are our sons, and so in correcting their mistakes we must lay aside all anger and restrain it so firmly that it is extinguished entirely. There must be no hostility in our minds, no contempt in our eyes, no insult on our lips. We must use mercy for the present and have hope for the future, as is fitting for true fathers who are eager for real correction and improvement.

My initial reaction was to feel sorry for myself: all that work, and poof! -- it's gone. Then I thought about how many gifts God has given me that I have failed to appreciate or even keep track of. I think I will swing by the school with a little note for my sad boy: "You are more important than the mittens."

January 26, 2011

Henry VI is an infant in the opening scene of the trilogy named for him; in its closing scene he dies. From his first appearance on the stage he is bookish and pious. "Marriage, Uncle! Alas, my years are young! / And fitter is my study and my books / Than wanton dalliance with a paramour." His nobles choke and splutter at the news of England's shrinking authority in France; Henry shrugs and says they must accept God's will.

These are not, as you might imagine, traits they find very kingly. "Be patient," Henry counsels Lord Clifford. "Patience is for poltroons," Clifford retorts. When the sparks of discontent ignite a civil war, Henry is even more ill-suited to lead.

You guys, do you know what would be fantastic? I think my local theater department needs to stage a Henry VI(-Edward IV-Richard III-Henry VII) marathon. The whole tetralogy, presented in a weekend. People can vote on their favorite play. They can give it a catchy name like "The (Wars of the) Roses Bowl." People would flock to it, right?

Right?

The coolest thing about reading the four plays back to back to back was watching the characters develop. It's no wonder I hated Richard III before -- it was a little like attending somebody else's high school reunion and wondering why I didn't get any of the jokes. Now I understand why it's so unexpected for the outcast (that'd be Richard) to take the cheerleader (that'd be Anne) to the prom.

I am going to keep trying to do a post on every play, which should get less onerous once I'm done with the big January push. Perhaps I shouldn't be complaining about onerous, given that a blog like this one exists. She's reading the complete works of Shakespeare this year and blogging all the way through it. I might have to rename this category: the Really Fairly Sane, Comparatively Speaking, Shakespeare Project.

A couple of bits and pieces I wanted to remember: Shakespeare refers repeatedly to people who are insane as "brain-sick." In view of the current emphasis on mental illness as a problem with physical roots, an organic problem based in the brain, it seems prescient of him. Of course, there's also plenty of talk about the influences of opposing planets &c., but it's interesting to see a little nugget of truth like that.

In case anyone needed a demonstration that mother blame is nothing new, I present the Duchess of York. "O my accursed womb, the bed of death!" she wails. "A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world." The deposed Queen Margaret agrees: "From forth the kennel of thy womb has crept / A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death."

January 23, 2011

Two weeks ago I resolved that I wouldn't goof around on the computer unless the dishes, the laundry, the meal prep, and my prayer life were where they needed to be first. For ten days this was an awesome plan. Things were caught up around here and I was feeling pretty good about it.

And then the habit fought back.

This week has been a real struggle. Part of it is that I hate my own sloth. Part of it is that the toddler sleep thing is kicking my butt from here to Madagascar. Or maybe Ganymede. I'm too disoriented from sleep deprivation to tell exactly where my butt has gone.

Part of it is that I'm not exactly sure how to proceed. I was in the Adoration chapel on Thursday morning, feeling guilty and frustrated about my bad habits, when I had a sudden insight, one of those moments of truth from outside my own head: overemphasizing self-discipline and to-do lists can be a form of idolatry.

The purpose of the Christian life is not to get things done. The purpose of the Christian life is not even to vanquish vices for the sake of vanquishing vices. The purpose of the Christian life is to live in relationship with Jesus.

If I fix my eyes on my to-do list, I can't fix my eyes on Jesus.

It's like I'm teetering between two errors. I can't be the person I'm called to be if sloth is grabbing me by the scruff of the neck. I also can't be the person I'm called to be if I am narrowly focused on efficiency. The computer and the to-do list are both good servants, bad masters.

I'm not making a Sunday Night Strategizing list this week because I have some discerning to do. (Also because last week left me full of discouragement and woe, but that's a secondary issue.) It's been really fun to see other SNS posts popping up here and there, so best wishes to all of you who are taking on your own to-do lists.

Oh, darn it, the 2yo is awake again. If you are a pray-er, please pray for her to sleep and me to have patience. I'm about to lose my mind here. Throwing up this unedited post and saying good night--

January 21, 2011

1. I am banging right along on the Crazy Shakespeare Project: twenty days, twenty acts. Even if I get sick of it in April, this was absolutely the way to read the Henry VI trilogy. It would have been so painful to read those plays at my previous one-per-year pace. I would have been all "Wait, is it Suffolk or Somerset who's having an affair with Margaret? I know it's one of those Suh-something guys. And hold on, I thought Gloucester used to be a good guy!" [Yeah, that would be because the previous Gloucester died and the title (not a name) was given to Richard of the shriveled soul.]

2. I am not much of a Shakespeare scholar -- I didn't know that the three Henry VI plays and Richard III were written as a tetralogy. Yesterday in Act V of 3 Henry VI I realized that of course I had to read Richard III next. Of course. Gulp.

3. This is the fourth time I have started Richard III. It is one of the longest plays Shakespeare wrote, and in years past I have read about half of the first scene and said, "You know, I think this is a good play to read another year." This time, dernit, I'm getting out of the first scene. My husband and I saw a performance of it in '92 or '93 and neither of us can recall anything but vague impressions: long, slow, with a diminutive ranty king and Elwood's sister in a crazy wig.

4. I've been asked a few questions about the specifics of the project. Electriclady raised the question of reading on her Nook vs. her physical Complete Works. I have been rotating from Kindle to iTouch Kindle app to physical book. The electronic versions of the plays are really cheap, ranging from free to $0.99 -- at least for the plays I've priced so far. I got all three Henry VI plays for $0.89, total. (I think it's imperative to buy an edition that lets you go right to the scene of your choosing; not all of them do.) The disadvantage to the electronic versions I've bought is that they have no footnotes, and sometimes footnotes are indispensable. I usually read on a gadget until I begin to feel frustrated by the lack of footnotes. Then I skim all the footnotes from that stretch of Kindle reading in my Complete Works, and keep going in the book until I get interrupted. I keep the iTouch in my pocket so I can read while I'm nursing the toddler or even while I'm waiting for the onion to brown. (It's caramelized, kids! Not burned [because I was trying to finish the scene], just caramelized!)

5. Speaking of interruptions and reading around a houseful of children, another question was whether I have a set time for reading each week. I squeeze in bits wherever I can throughout the day, and usually finish up the day's act before I go to sleep. With the Kindle I can read a fair amount while I'm getting Stella settled at naptime and bedtime.

6. A couple of people have asked me about the selection of plays and their sequencing. The selection is completely idiosyncratic: the plays on my list are the ones I haven't read yet. I put them in that table in fairly random order, so I expect to jump around quite a bit.

7. Three people so far have said, "This makes me want to read Shakespeare!" To each of them I have said, "Yes! Do! Tell me all about it!" I'm having a blast with this project so far. If you're interested in reading four or more plays, you can still sign up for the Shakespeare Reading Challenge. If you just want to read a little bit of Shakespeare, I'd love to hear about it here.

January 19, 2011

The middle play of the Henry VI trilogy is all about the jostling for power that takes place in the run-up to civil war and in its early days. Some bits of the first half were the kind of Shakespeare I like least, in which the Earl of Whatsit and the Duke of Wherever go on and on in I'm-especially-good-at-expostulating fashion.

Act IV, though, was something completely different. John Cade first appears on the stage in Act IV, ushering in a sequence that reminded me of nothing so much as, again, the Coen Brothers. It's not unusual for Shakespeare to sprinkle funny scenes into a tragedy, like this bit in Macbeth where the porter complains about the way that drinking boosts desire and impairs performance. In my experience, though, those episodes are usually extraneous and are often excised. (I have that example at the ready because I still remember my astonishment on discovering it. As a high school senior I read Act III at home in my dad's Complete Works, and then learned the next day that the porter's scene had been edited right out of my English text. Bowdlerization! I couldn't believe it!)

John Cade is like nothing I remember seeing in Shakespeare: every bit as bumbling as Dogberry and his ilk, but loaded for bear with an army of commoners at his back. His scenes are hilarious, but it's black, black humor. Although these events date from more than 500 years ago, they spark timely questions given our current political climate -- in particular, what equips a person to govern? Shakespeare derides the idea that an unlettered man could lead. (2 Henry VI is the source of the quote "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"; it's a proposal from one of Cade's followers, all of whom view education with suspicion.) On the other hand, in scenes reminiscent of modern-day debates about the "liberal elite," Henry is described as overly fond of books and is clearly ineffectual. He is too passive, the grasping Richard too vulpine.

Shakespeare doesn't offer an easy answer to the questions he raises. Henry's uncle, the good Lord Protector who has served in that office since Henry was a baby, yields up his staff of authority. His wife is worried; he dismisses her fears. He tells her "And had I twenty times so many foes, / And each of them had twenty times their power, / All these could not procure me any scathe / So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless." His reward for decades of faithful service? He is murdered in his bed. It's a troubled place, 15th-century England.

January 18, 2011

My pal Steve became a dad for the first time in July, and yesterday I got a message from him about his son, who has been biting while nursing. I sent him a speedy reply with a promise of more info soon, but I thought the topic might make a useful blog post.

Biting: Why?

There are three main reasons why nurslings bite. The biggest, especially in a 6-month-old, is teething discomfort. Erupting teeth hurt. Counterpressure helps.

Sometimes biting is related to starting solids and related milk supply issues. Most babies begin showing interest in solids around the middle of the first year, and biting can be a way of saying, "Hey, is there anything else to eat around here?" A variation on this scenario occurs when mom starts solids earlier, and her milk supply drops a bit too quickly as baby nurses less.

A third reason, more common in older babies and toddlers, is unhappiness. Sometimes babies get bored with nursing, especially when mom is trying to put them to sleep. A little nip can be an effective antidote to boredom because it provokes such an interesting reaction. Sometimes toddlers get overloaded -- angry or frustrated -- and bite as a way to say that something's not right in the world.

Biting: What To Do

If baby is biting because his gums hurt, easing the pain will usually reduce or eliminate the biting. Try a teether that can go in the freezer, or a frozen washcloth. (Last night autocorrect turned "frozen teethers" into "frozen terriers" in my message to Steve. Please don't feed your baby frozen terriers.) If you've started solids, try stripping baby down to his diaper and giving him a frozen banana with which to wreak havoc (and, incidentally, numb his gums). Don't forget the stripping down part, or you will be hitting that piece of clothing with buckets of OxyClean and despair. Consider over-the-counter pain reliever if your baby is really uncomfortable.

If you haven't yet started solids with a baby who's around six months old, you could think about trying tastes of mashed banana or sweet potato. Some crunchy parents think that a longer stretch of exclusive breastfeeding must be better than a mere six months, but babies are wired to begin exploring other foods around the six-month mark. (Give or take. Allergy-prone babies may consistently refuse solids at that point.) If you have been enthusiastic about solids and your milk supply has dropped as a result, try some low-key measures to boost supply. Start with breast massage beforehand and breast compression during feedings, and see if that seems to make a difference. Try shorter, more frequent nursings, gently cutting baby off before he has time to bite. Do not -- really, do not -- get all stressed out about your milk supply. It's less likely that you have a sudden big milk supply crisis than that your baby has figured out a new way to get your attention pronto so he can express mild dissatisfaction.

If baby is unhappy, think about why. If boredom is the issue, are you sure he's really tired? Can you try something else to put him to sleep, like rocking or walking or swaying with him in a baby carrier? With an overwhelmed toddler, it can help if you address whatever's making him unhappy, and offer empathy, and teach words/signs like "mad" and "frustrated" and "grumpy."

Regardless of the cause of the biting, it's often preventable. Keep an eye on that little tongue, which should be visibly cupping the breast. To use the lower incisors for biting, baby has to retract the tongue. This gives you an opportunity to unlatch him before you get chomped. If biting is a chronic thing at the end of feeings, try slipping the baby off when his sucking slows down. (The very hardest kind of biting to deal with is the baby who clenches inadvertently as he's easing into sleep. Five children of my own and ten years helping breastfeeding dyads, and I'm still stumped by that one. Ideas welcome, because OUCH I hate that!)

If you miss the cues and baby clamps down, try a completely counterintuitive move: pull him in as close as possible to your breast. If his nose is buried in breast tissue, he'll let go so he can breathe more comfortably. Sounds weird, but it usually works. Be firm but gentle: "OUCH, that hurts Mama. Let's take a little break from nursing." Babies are smarter than we think they are, and they'll usually catch on quickly that biting Mama means no more milk for a bit.

In general, I think it's prudent to moderate one's reaction to a bite. If you have a sensitive baby, you can really frighten him if you yell. On the other hand, some babies think it's interesting to get such a rise out of a usually calm mama and may bite because it elicits a big reaction. I have had both kinds of babies, and so I'll say it again: firm but gentle is the way to go.

To sum up: biting in a younger baby is usually tied to something physical. Biting in an older baby or a toddler may have a physical cause or it may be more complicated. It used to infuriate me to be bitten by a child I thought was old enough to know better, but these days I see it with different eyes. I think it it means, "Something is wrong and I know you can fix it. You're the one who can help when I'm really upset. I'm safe with you."

January 17, 2011

My 5yo and I play a game. He gets himself all armored up with an assortment of items from the costume chest. He strides up to me and asks, "Any emenies?" "Oh, dear, yes," I say. "There's a terrible troll in the office closet. I've been wishing I could get in there because I need my other coat, but he's a very scary guy." Pete marches off, sword at the ready, and comes back a few minutes later to tell me the troll has been dispatched. Next I send him down to the basement, where there might be a wicked centaur hiding under the steps. We have a terrible problem with one-eyed giants in the downstairs shower, but luckily Pete keeps them under control.

I've been meaning to blog about our game for a while, because I know it will fade away sooner or later. Yesterday Pete walked up to me while I was trying to finish the Office of Readings. "Any emenies?" he wanted to know. "Why don't you ask Alex?" I said. "I'll be done in a few minutes here."

Alex was reading in the next room, but he was happy to play along. "Up in my closet," he told Pete, "there is an evil tentacled beast. I need you to cut off all his tentacles and bring them to me as sushi."

Pete was happy to oblige, hurtling down the steps a few minutes later with an imaginary plate balanced in his hands. "Here's your shusi!" he announced.

Most knights are just knights. At our house, they moonlight as sushi chefs.

January 16, 2011

I have decided to move my Sunday night strategizing posts to a new spot. If you love them and never want to miss a single one, you can subscribe here. I'll probably post a quick link here as well when a new one is up.

January 15, 2011

I mentioned that I'd been dreading Shakespeare's Henry the Sixth trilogy. I expected it to be a slogfest, full of interchangeable nobles and soporific speechifying. My apologies to Mr. Shakespeare: I'm two plays in and finding it engaging, moving, laugh-out-loud funny in spots, and reasonably easy to follow despite the York-Lancaster machinations.

Tonight, some quick thoughts on Part One. I loved Shakespeare's treatment of Joan of Arc in Act I. Particularly memorable: a nobleman named Talbot swaggers in, full of bombast and braggadocio. You almost expect him to burst into song -- "I'm especially good at expectorating!" -- and then he meets Joan. She leaves him quaking in his boots, saying, "They called us for our fierceness English dogs; / Now, like to whelps, we crying run away."

It was a bit of a shock, then, to see her in Act V. She summons demons (!) and offers them her blood, her body (!!), her soul (!!!). They reject her offers (!!!!); the tide turns against the French. I didn't realize until I read this play that Joan of Arc wasn't canonized until 1920. I thought at first that Shakespeare was giving precedence to jingoism over accurate biography, but I suppose I don't know how long it takes to have one's reputation rehabilitated after being executed for heresy.

Talbot reappears in Act IV with his son. The two of them are fighting a doomed battle -- doomed by infighting among two other nobles whom the naive king has instructed to stop fighting and get along already. The whole segment is well done, with the well-meaning king and the squabbling dukes, but I especially enjoyed the father-son dialogue in which each encourages the other to flee and live. In the end, though, they both die in the battle. Talbot says, "If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side, / And commendable proved, let's die in pride."

I launched into the trilogy thinking, "Three plays? Was that really necessary? Who would ever watch THREE PLAYS about HENRY THE SIXTH?" I was pleasantly surprised, again, by the end of Part One. The Earl of Suffolk (cue booing and hissing) persuades Henry that he should marry Margaret, breaking his more politically advantageous engagement. The pliant Henry acquiesces over the objections of his uncle, the Lord Protector. We can already smell the trouble brewing in Part Two -- about which more soon.

January 14, 2011

Hey, everybody, it's National Delurking Day! Say hi! Tell me your favorite thing to cook for dinner in a hurry. Tell me whether you prefer Facebook or Twitter. Tell me how you found my blog. Or tell me what the low temperature will be in your town this weekend. Anything at all -- it's always fun to hear from you, whether you comment regularly or usually lurk.

January 12, 2011

For the most part, my kids haven't been in CCD [religious education for kids who don't go to Catholic school], a state of affairs which pushes my guilt button. See, I can't help thinking in my secret heart that if I were a Really Excellent Mom I would homeschool again, and handle religious ed myself in a systematic way. My secret heart also thinks that if I were a Pretty Awesome Mom then I would figure out a way to put four kids (four unwilling kids) in Catholic school and they would get religious ed in a systematic way at school. Instead I am just an Ordinary Mom whose kids go to public school. And then I don't send them to CCD.

I've been ambivalent about CCD for a long time. It kind of has to be a lowest common denominator program, because it serves the whole parish. The downside to a lowest common denominator program is that when kids come in from families who are -- oh my HECK I have re-written this sentence too many times trying not to sound smug and failing -- families who are really striving to live the faith, those kids may not learn a lot in CCD.

When we homeschooled, I was fairly ambitious in what I wanted my kids to learn about their faith. At that point I was reasonably confident that I was covering the bases. Even after we stopped homeschooling, I wasn't convinced that I should send them to CCD. If you send kids to a program designed to teach them about their faith and they don't learn anything there, is the take-home message that they have nothing to learn about their faith? Because that's a bad take-home message. I'm not going to shell out the money and scramble to get there at a tricky time in order to send that message.

At the same time, I'm not reading Deuteronomy aloud these days.

I put our second son in CCD for his sacrament preparation in second grade. "What are some things you learned in CCD?" I asked him at the end of the year. "I can't think of anything," he said. When our third son hit second grade, our wiggly vocal opinionated impatient third son, I got permission from the pastor to prepare him at home. The pastor was fine with it; not so the deacon in charge of CCD. "What's wrong with him?" he wanted to know when I said I'd be teaching Joe at home. In the spring he urged me to bring Joe to the remaining sessions. I made the mistake of saying that we had a conflict with soccer practice and was subjected to a lecture on the relative importance of sports and faith. Which, thanks, I think I've got sorted out.

This year my oldest son is preparing for confirmation, and so Wednesday nights are CCD nights once again. Last week he brought home a quiz. The first question instructed the kids to name the four gospels and I was aghast -- appalled -- to see 1) Paul 2) John 3) Mark 4) Luck.

Paul? And LUCK? LUCK??

I stewed. I fretted. I gnashed my teeth and questioned the last 4.5 years' worth of decision-making. Luck! LUCK! What had become of the boy who insisted on hearing more Leviticus? I showed it to my husband, who said, "Paul and John? Where are George and Ringo?" I said, "Should we put him into Catholic school RIGHT NOW?"

My son came home from school and I said, with all the neutrality I could muster, "Hey, what's up with this gospel of Paul?" He was flummoxed until I showed him the paper.

"Oh," he said, "I must have picked up someone else's paper by mistake along with mine. Mine is underneath."

In his own handwriting (I have to laugh at myself for not noticing the handwriting) I saw the four gospels written neatly. No Paul. No Luck.

This is a rambly post to say I question my decisions all the time. Should they all be in CCD? Should I homeschool them again? Is Catholic school more affordable than I think it is? Am I doing the right thing by them? I do not know. But I am grateful, at least, that they know there's no gospel according to Ringo.

January 11, 2011

In July I signed up for a weekly hour in our parish Adoration chapel. It was one of those things I'd been considering for a long time, but I'd never quite managed to figure out the logistics. Finally I said, "All right. The next time an hour pops up in the bulletin that's remotely doable, I'm there."

It's been fantastic. It's a little oasis in the week, a little island of peace and refreshment. I'd been a fairly regular visitor to the chapel but there's something special about being alone in there for a full hour. The first time I went to an Adoration hour it took forever. Empires rose and fell, tectonic plates shifted, mass extinctions occurred -- and yet somehow I looked at my watch and observed that the time was only ten minutes past the last time I'd checked. But these days I'm always a little regretful when my hour's up and I have to head back into the outside world.

My schedule changed between the fall and spring semesters, and I'd been thinking I'd need to ask someone else to take the hour because I don't have Wednesday morning babysitting lined up. I can get through an hour in the chapel with Stella in tow, but it's a pretty different experience. I was procrastinating on letting the coordinator know, though, because I was reluctant to give it up.

And then! Today! The phone rang! It was a woman I don't know at all. She has the Thursday 9am hour and she couldn't keep it because she was starting a new job. Believe it or not, Thursday at 9am is perfect for me, and Wednesday at 8am is perfect for her. How about that?

January 10, 2011

Can we still be friends if I tell you that I refuse to see another Coen Brothers movie? I know that all the cool people love the Coen Brothers, but I don't care: not gonna do it. Their images get under my skin and stay there, and really I like the underside of my skin just fine without any mangled dead bodies lurking there. I don't mind the quirky (I'd be in a world of trouble if I hated quirky, since quirky is practically my middle name). I mind the blood, I mind the improbably motivated killings, I mind the characters whose inner workings I just cannot fathom -- all of which brings me to Titus Andronicus.

Titus Andronicus is awash in blood. It reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon that came out when The Passion of Christ was in theaters, with Mel Gibson shouting into a director's megaphone "More blood!" Titus Andronicus is widely held to be Shakespeare's worst play, and I am here to tell you the reputation is not undeserved.

It is so alarming that it kept me pretty much rapt, waiting to see what awful thing would happen next. In the final act Titus kills his daughter, his beloved broken daughter, a deed that made me say out loud, "Oh, no, you didn't!" That's the moment I keep puzzling over in my head, telling myself things like "paterfamilias" and "death before dishonor." But mostly I just keep telling myself, "That is deeply wrong."

It's not just that it's excessively bloody and set in a time when fathers ruled absolutely over their families. The characters don't even make sense. Tamora, the captured queen of the Goths, appears first in Act I pleading for the life of her son. "And if thy sons were ever dear to me, / O think my son to be as dear to me," she implores. "Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?" she asks. "Draw near them then in being merciful. / Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge." And yet when she gives birth to her lover's child she sends the baby to him with instructions to kill it, to "christen it with thy dagger's point." Really, Tamora? Really? And oh, her lover Aaron is a piece of work -- a Moor (cue the blackness cliches) with not an iota of goodness in him. In his last appearance on stage he asserts: "Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things / As willingly as one would kill a fly, / And nothing grieves me heartily indeed, / But that I cannot do ten thousand more."

I don't buy it. Shakespeare's later villains are much more persuasive.

Still, in the years I have spent reading Shakespeare, the moments I have disliked most are the sloggy moments, spent counting down the lines until an act is over. Titus Andronicus has many flaws, but it is certainly not boring. And it also means that this year of Shakespeare can only get better.

January 08, 2011

So I am resolved to finish the works of Shakespeare this year, which means reading 17 plays and most of the poetry. That, my friends, is a lot of Shakespeare. You will probably not be surprised to hear that I have a Plan.

This month I am aiming to read six plays, one act per day. An act a day is a great pace for me -- it feels like headway without actually taking too much time. I started with Titus Andronicus, to get it out of the way, and I have moved on to the Henry VI trilogy. I expected to be counting down the lines until the end, but I was surprised to find I really enjoyed the first act -- so much so that I made my husband stop reading his own stuff so I could read my favorite bits aloud to him.

After the Henry VI trilogy I will probably read Pericles and Timon of Athens, in order to get the most dreaded plays out of the way. That will leave me with 11 plays, or one for each remaining month. That should leave me plenty of time to cover the poetry, right?

I'm feeling optimistic -- even if I bail in July, I'll read more Shakespeare than I would have otherwise. If I were a Shakespeare scholar, or even a less distracted googler, I would end with a suitable Shakespeare quote. Maybe by this time next year I'll have found one that's exactly right. Watch this space!

Kristin asked specifically about FlyLady and the rosary, both of which are fertile ground for breeding that alarming monster, the Perfectionist-Slacker hybrid. You can recognize it by its giant trailing flagellum (the better to beat you with, my dear) and its nauseous miasma of self-loathing.

I first subscribed to FlyLady's emails not long after she started sending them, eleven years ago, and I have been an off-and-on subscriber ever since. There are three things I have learned in those eleven years that may be useful (but may also be obvious). First, I have finally figured out that nobody else's program is going to work for me exactly as written. FlyLady and I part company early on, because I don't wear shoes in the house and I have no intention of doing so. (That was the big asterisk in my 2010 FlyLady resolution: "...everything* FlyLady tells me *except about wearing shoes because why would I want lead-contaminated soil and stray bits of dog poop tracked all over my carpet?") My house, my kids, my priorities -- why would she be able to predict exactly how I should keep my life in order?

Second, there are two truths in tension when it comes to FlyLady. I'm almost always glad when I do something she tells me to do. At the same time, I can only do everything she tells me if that's my primary focus. Outings with my kids seem to get pushed aside because I have one more FlyLady task to accomplish and suddenly it's naptime so we can't go out. It's better for me to plan on doing part of the package, perhaps choosing a particular habit to work on, and give myself upfront permission to delete freely.

This leads into #3, which is a hard one for me: running a household with small children is just not easy. There's this misperception that it's only housework, only childcare, and if you weren't a lazy slob you would just get it done. I disagree. Even in a small house there are a zillion things that need doing and entropy is an implacable force. It took me years to admit something that you may find self-evident (or whiny, depending on your POV), but I suspect I am not the only one out there laboring under the weight of a false idea. It's not an easy gig. Don't beat yourself up if you struggle: it's not you, it's the job.

Next up, the rosary. For those of you who aren't Catholic, the rosary is a structured meditation in which a person reflects on events in the lives of Jesus and Mary. A person could sit down for 20 minutes and pray the rosary contemplatively, pondering in turn the mysteries and the related scripture and her intentions and the words of the prayers. A person could also pray the rosary on the run, counting Hail Marys on her fingers while folding laundry and stopping in the middle of a sentence to redirect a contumacious child. Such a person might get to the eighth Hail Mary and say, "Wait, what decade is this supposed to be?"

Honestly, the rosary at my house looks like option B more often than option A. My strength is not contemplation. My strength is showing up. I cannot pretend to offer guidance on how to pray like St. Teresa, but I can tell you that you won't get to ecstatic union if you don't keep showing up. (Let me throw in here that I love Peter Kreeft's little book Prayer for Beginners -- it's just full of good stuff.) If you are trying to get started with the rosary, think of option A as a destination, not a starting point. Contemplation, kind of like keeping house, is harder than I expected it to be. It's reasonable to start small.

If you are trying to fit the rosary in, it may be useful to know that it takes less than three minutes to pray a decade. It may be useful to pray along with a recording so that you are not derailed by a moment of distraction, or so that you can do something mindless with your hands. I often pray the rosary while washing dishes or folding laundry. A person could complain that this diminished attention debases the rosary, though I hope only a really crabby person would think that. I prefer to think that I am sanctifying the housework.

Because a decade of the rosary is quick and composed of familiar prayers, it's fairly easy to do with kids. We almost never sit down to pray five decades, the way a Good Catholic FamilyTM might, but one decade I can manage. Instead of launching into an unbroken string of Hail Marys, I usually give them a brief thought to reflect on at the beginning, after the third Hail Mary, and after the seventh Hail Mary. The goal is to combine facts and food for thought, so I might say, "Forty days after his Resurrection Jesus rose up into heaven as his apostles watched," and then, "We honor your authority over heaven and earth," and finally, "We ask for the grace to carry your holy truth into the world" -- just something quick and off the cuff that I hope will help those words from Acts 1 sink into their heads. The kids can all tell you that it takes less than three minutes but it's longer if you interrupt. And you know, maybe if I were a better mother I wouldn't emphasize how fast it's over, but I have to tell you they're almost always willing to cooperate -- in part because it's short.

One last idea, because my word count is creeping up and up, is to pray the rosary with a child who is going to sleep. To teach my children how to go to sleep without nursing, I would rub their backs and pray the rosary quietly. I think it is a lovely peaceful association for them -- my 8yo (who has been weaned for a long time!) still asks me to tuck him in that way.

So-- I am a half-hearted FlyLady follower, but my house is cleaner than it used to be. And I am hardly a rosary role model, but I can tell you that good things will follow if you just show up.

January 04, 2011

Kristin asked me a couple of specific questions about New Year's resolutions which I promise to answer, but the post I sat down and wrote turned out to be more general. Second installment coming soon!

In college I agonized over writing papers. I wrote mostly longhand, dictionary and thesaurus at my elbow, and it took me FOREVER -- I had to give myself at least an hour per page. Even back then I was struck by the fact that if I just forced myself to write something, anything, I would often come back to it later and say, "Hey, that's better than I thought it was." The important truth hidden there took years to sink in: perfectionism is the enemy of steady progress.

FlyLady bangs on and on about perfectionism and some of it has sunk in for me. In the past I would stare at a kitchen full of dirty dishes and think, "These are going to take forever." I'd procrastinate, thinking about how long it would take to do them all, with a cloud of apprehension building over my head. I'd re-read a children's book. I'd alphabetize my skincare products. I'd think, "Boy, it stinks that I have to wash so many dishes. I should wipe down the stove, too. And mop." Would I get in there and do those things? Reader, I would not.

These days I have finally learned that quick and dirty and DONE is usually better than the alternative, which is why I'm only calling myself a sort-of perfectionist. I was just writing about this recently, about getting off my behind to go into the kitchen and wash 15 minutes' worth of dishes. My husband thinks it is a little silly to set a timer for kitchen chores, but it keeps me moving and gives me an end point, and the inevitable result, 100% of the time, is that I am pleasantly surprised by how much I can accomplish in 15 minutes.

So I have become a big believer in the power of the small chunk, and in January that belief joins forces with my longstanding love of a fresh start. I am usually optimistic about New Year's resolutions, and I think I am getting better at making them keepable. Here are some of my tricks:

Fuel the machine. If I am not eating well and getting enough sleep, I don't have the motivation to sustain changes. Why bother? The future is bleak enough without setting myself up for further disappointment. This one makes a huge, huge difference in my willingness to move forward.

Write it down. Vague ideas about how my life could be different will never be implemented if they stay in my head. They may or may not be implemented if they make it onto a piece of paper or this blog, but the odds are vastly higher.

Make it measurable. Again, vague is the enemy. An inchoate yearning for "better" gets me nowhere. I need a Plan. (I like my Plans to have capital Ps.)

Be accountable. No one on the internet cares if I balance my checkbook this week or not, but I know that I have put it out there. Sometimes I get my friends involved. Sometimes if it's really important I write down promises to God in my prayer notebook. Telling someone else about my Plans keeps me moving, because I want to think of myself as a woman of my word.

Give yourself some wiggle room. It might have been a bad idea to post that I was going to pray the whole Office every day. I'd be more likely to hit a more flexible target, like 5 of the hours, 6 days this week. That way, forgetting on Tuesday or getting too overwhelmed on Thursday doesn't mean I've blown the goal.

Plan something to look forward to. I don't always write the follow-up posts here, because they are less interesting than the lament posts. Remember the Horrible Office? I never wrote the post that said, "Hurray, I cleaned it all up and did a victory dance!" -- but I did! Or remember my sundress goal? I did indeed wear that dress when we went out for my 40th birthday. (But I put a cardigan on top because I don't show that much skin these days except at the pool.)

I was having an attack of perfectionism thinking about this post. If my life were a bed it would have rumpled covers with raggedy edges, I was thinking. Just look at the papers piled on the desk right now! Who am I to tell people how to get stuff done? Then I decided to set a timer for 15 minutes and just write. I needed to go back later and fill in here and there, but this is the result. Imperfect, of course, but I hope it has some useful bits.

January 02, 2011

So you know how I was going to post this on another blog? I'll have to do that next time. Tried to whip out a quick post and realized that I had some serious housecleaning to do requiring some technical help. Next week.

A spontaneous trip to Chicago means I am cranking this out at the last minute, because my resolution to stay off the computer after 10:30 and my resolution to make a plan for each week are just about to go head to head. Speedily, then:

I have this crazy idea that I'm going to aim to pray the whole Office during January. I'm going to try it this week and see if it's really really crazy or only slightly crazy.

Paper SMACKDOWN coming this week to a desk near you. Or maybe not near you. Near me, at any rate. Watch for exciting checkbook balancing!

Kristin asked some really good questions in a comment on my last post, and I am going to get back in the posting groove with a post in response.

Titus Andronicus is going DOWN.

The good thing about writing a to-do last at the very last minute is that you can't make it too long. See you later!

January 01, 2011

1. It's the time of year for reflecting, and I can't help but think that 2010 was a productive year. I finished the PhD, decluttered my house, got all my pictures into albums (through July) got into shape (sort of. I am pretty slugly at the moment), and finished the novels of Dickens. Wheeee! It makes me say, What next?? I didn't hit my New Year's resolutions from last year, but I was aiming pretty high. Each one, it turns out, bore its own fruit, and so I'm enthusiastic about aiming high again.

2. I read a couple of really helpful books this year about discipline, change, and time use: Switch and 168 Hours. I was kind of lukewarm about 168 Hours at first, but I have continued to think about it. Laura Vanderkam is exactly right: you live your life one hour at a time, and it's easy to let the hours slip away. I was dithering about how much to tell you about Switch, and my dithering paid off -- take a look at this thorough post over at Bearing. I found it useful to think in terms of the Rider/Elephant/Path framework. Erin will tell you all about it, but it boils down to the reality that willpower is finite and you can't just will your way through change.

3. One example of how this worked for me recently is the laundry situation. I have been writing online about my laundry backlog for as long as I have been writing online, which is kind of sad, but this summer it dawned on me that I needed to get my Elephant on the team. Instead of taking baskets of clean laundry up to the guest room, where they would mysteriously not fold themselves yet again, I started leaving them in the living room. I can deal with one basket of laundry in the living room, or perhaps two if I am unusually busy, but more than that makes me intolerably twitchy -- twitchy enough that I fold it, as a matter of fact. Huzzah! (I am sure there are many of you who would frown on having a basket of unfolded laundry in the living room, but I have to tell you it beats the heck out of the Laundry Andes that used to bury the guest bed.)

So. The actual resolutions--

4. Body. First on the list is sugar, again, though I continue to struggle with how emphatically to eschew sugar in a culture that celebrates everything with sugar. I think I'll try giving up all solitary, non-celebratory sugar. I'll have a slice of my kids' birthday cakes, but I won't keep eating cake alone after they go to bed. (This might be delusional, given my history. We shall see.) I'm also planning to run 500 miles this year, or do an equivalent amount of other exercise if my aged joints give me trouble.

5. Soul. This year I am aiming to get to Mass a hundred times, although it is a little weird to count one's Mass attendance. I am also planning to talk regularly to my spiritual director about my internet usage, which continues to be a problem for me. Those Sunday Night Strategizing posts have been a fantastic self-discipline tool for me, so I'll keep them up. (I also feel a little weird about posting them here, because I think they are simultaneously boring and very personal. I'm going to scoot them over to their own blog, one I've had set up for a while, and see how that works. I'll link to them for those of you who've found them helpful, but you won't have to read them if you're tired of my to-do lists. Although-- anyone tired of my to-do lists probably stopped reading this post a couple of paragraphs ago.)

6. Mind. Remember my frustrating Shakespeare project? I am seizing the bull by the horns, resolving to finish the works of Shakespeare this year. This is ambitious, because I have 16 (or 17? must go and count when I finish this post) plays plus most of the poetry to read, but I'm going to give it a shot.

7. Family. Here my plan is to stay off the internet between the end of school and the end of dinner clean-up, and after 10:30. I also want to pray more explicitly for my kids, instead of just vaguely lifting them up.